What SCO Wants, SCO Gets (Forbes)

Posted Jun 18, 2003 12:15 UTC (Wed) by rjamestaylor (guest, #339) [Link]

Posted Jun 18, 2003 12:20 UTC (Wed) by JoeBuck (subscriber, #2330) [Link]

Forbes takes an extreme right-wing slant both in their "news" articles and in their editorial content; their editor has been a presidential candidate. For business news, anyone who's serious should read something else.

Posted Jun 18, 2003 12:33 UTC (Wed) by TimGraf (guest, #12155) [Link]

It's rather pathetic of SCO to resort to lawsuits to bring in revenue when what they should be doing is producing quality products considered of value to the industry they are supposed to serve. SCO has not added any new features or substantial additions to UNIX system V to generate any interest from the IT industry in several years. SCO and UNIX has also benefited in the past from the work done by the free software / open source community.

Linux, GNU and the free software / open source communities are producing quality products and generating interests from the IT industry because the software they are creating is solving real work problems in the industry. They are improving their software on an almost daily basis. If companies such as SCO and Microsoft don't wake up and realize the only reason they are losing market share is because their products are no longer competing well against their competitors they will soon find themselves extinct, much like the Dinosaurs.

The IT industry has always been about innovation and producing new and exciting products that help people to solve current real world problems. When Microsoft first came onto the scene they were able to generate excitement about the products they created and how their products would help us do our work quicker and better. Today this excitement is not being generated by companies like Microsoft or SCO. Instead the free software and open source communities are doing this at a ever quickening pace.

Companies like SCO and Microsoft should take a reality check and ask them selves are they putting more effort in producing products to improve the industry or are they spending far too much time in desperate efforts to save market share and squeeze more money out of their customers without producing anything new. In the end it's the customers IT spending that will decide. If SCO and Microsoft are serious about retaining their positions in the industry the effort they put into producing quality products will prove their commitment to their customers.

Posted Jun 18, 2003 12:33 UTC (Wed) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

Posted Jun 18, 2003 12:37 UTC (Wed) by mongre26 (guest, #4224) [Link]

I have seen this opinion voiced in serveral articles regarding how us "Open Source Crunchies" are ignoring this issue.

Perhaps the author should balance out their perspective by reading up on the USL v BSD case as well as the mountain of GPL violations that did not go to court because of the strength and reasonableness of that license.

If the OS community has confidence it is because we have always had it in our way of doing things. The community would not have gotten as far as it has without that confidence, and a fair amount of justification for that confidence to back them up.

And to claims that the OS community is just sitting back smug, the amount of press/coverage/comments from OS advocates and personalities has been constant and verbose. Just because this guys radar does not track the OS communities blogs does not mean the OS community is taking this lying down.

What commentators like this fail to realize is that IP and IP law is something that the OS community takes extremely seriously and is well versed in. Afterall without strong IP law and an excellent understanding of that law the OS community would not exist, at least not in its present form.

I have every confidence that the correct conclusions will be found in this case to be benefit of the OS community, and the software industry at large.

Terrence

Posted Jun 18, 2003 12:59 UTC (Wed) by mmarq (guest, #2332) [Link]

The worst that could happen is for IBM to buy this "poison pill" SCO.

Posted Jun 18, 2003 13:16 UTC (Wed) by ccchips (guest, #3222) [Link]

Hey---isn't this a parody of a line from Damn Yankees?

I believe the dubious compliment was to one of the Devil's minions, no?

Posted Jun 18, 2003 13:31 UTC (Wed) by emk (subscriber, #1128) [Link]

Here are some other Forbes articles on Linux, from the sidebar:

• Why You Won't Be Getting A Linux PC
• The Limitations Of Linux
• Boies' Take On Linux
• PeopleSoft Jumps On The Linux Train
• Oracle's Linux Lineup
• The Cult Of Linux

And some choice adjectives from this article: "crunchies", "religious folk". This is apparently because the open source community (1) asked SCO to show the ****ing code, (2) suggested that SCO has been playing fast and loose with the facts, and (3) thought that SCO was maybe a bit greedy in claiming that proprietary IBM inventions (such as RCU) belonged to SCO simply because IBM has used them in various UNIX implementations.

I think we can safely assume that Forbes is a biased source of information, and that they're playing fast and loose with the ideals of journalism.

Posted Jun 18, 2003 15:16 UTC (Wed) by jmorris42 (subscriber, #2203) [Link]

What happens when publications such as Forbes attempt coverage of complex issues outside their core compentency is something wretched like the piece linked above. But to 90% of their readers the factual errors will not be obvious and the flawed conclusions will appear reasonable, if for no other reason than their appearance in a publication they trust.

Keep that in mind when you read the mainstream press on subjects YOU aren't already knowledgeable about. Unless you are a doctor or researcher can you really know when a mainstream press report on a medical issue has not went just as horribly wrong as this one? You can't. And that is why fewer and fewer people trust the press, they are doing a terrible job and the audience is figuring that out.

Specialized sources, like this site or God help us all - Slashdot, provide much better coverage in a very narrow field. Other sites cover other fields equally better vs the mainstream media. Even though sites such as this often link to the mainstream press, it is the editorial selection and meta commentary, putting the artical into perspective, fact checking, etc which is malfunctioning in the mainstream press, that provides the value.

Welcome to the future.

Posted Jun 18, 2003 15:25 UTC (Wed) by bertox (guest, #11146) [Link]

This column is awfully similar to the one Dvorak wrote a week or so ago. "Wake up!!" they write, but neglect to tell us what we should be doing instead. Why should we worry, what good would that do? HP has looked at the code and says it's clean. IBM says it's clean. Red Hat and SuSE say it's clean. The kernel coders say it's clean. The FSF vouches for the libraries and GNU tool chain. The only thing that can hurt us is if the court buys the idea that SCO owns not just UNIX, but everything even remotely related to it. A Utah court maybe, but not the Court of Appeals.

Posted Jun 18, 2003 15:30 UTC (Wed) by skybunny (guest, #4478) [Link]

Yes, yes, SCO is being a 'bad neighbor', they're not producing anything of value through these lawsuits, and the only thing they can probably do is hurt themselves while dragging a lot of people who don't need to be, through the mud.

But, uh...what IF SCO wins? Seriously now. How many of us honestly consider the possibility that a judge may say: 'You know, I agree with SCO's interpretation of their patents. I'm instating an injunction right now. No selling AIX. And if SCO wishes to bar sales and distribution of Linux, I'm open to that idea too.' An injuction doesn't require a trial. If a judge believes SCO has a strong enough case, he can do exactly as SCO asks, and in days' time.

Linux, free software, and IBM will not win this court battle because they are right, or because IBM is a big company with a lot of resources. Whether they are 'right' is irrelevant in the legal arena, where what matters is who has the best legal backing behind their claims. This court and PR battle will be won through vigilence, money, vocal statements, and, if necessary, lobbying legislatures if things come to that.

Forbes is saying here that SCO has very...dedicated people in its ranks that are willing to fight in court for something for years or longer if it means they get what they want. By the same token, Linux advocates and IBM may have to be prepared for a fight just that long. I WILL say that anyone who dismisses this problem as the collective rantings of lunatics at SCO may be right within the arena of popular opinion of Linux advocates, but I myself am well aware of the possibility that a very bad decision may come down from the courts, and soon. Unlikely, but possible.

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Long, drawn-out patent battles are not without precedent in the United States. In the days of radio, one of the key inventions needed to make console radios possible in every American home was the 'regenerative circuit', invented and patented by Edwin H. Armstrong. The circuit used the principle of regeneration (sending the same signal through the circuit over and over again) to produce an amplified signal - so much so that radios could be manufactured without the need for earphones.

The problem is that Armstrong's circuit resembled a 1906 invention by Lee DeForest, called the audion tube. It had mostly the same hardware as the regenerative circuit; the main difference was set in how the circuit was used, to produce dramatically different results.

Armstrong's regenerative circuit patent was issued on October 6, 1914. Nearly a year later, DeForest applied for a patent on the same invention, which he sold with rights to the audion tube to AT&T.

Thus, in a battle through a dozen courts, from 1922 to 1934 (12 years!), Armstrong and AT&T fought the longest patent battle in U.S. history. Armstrong won the first round, lost the second, stalemated in the third, and lost in the Supreme Court because of a misunderstanding of the technical facts.

Some years later, Armstrong created another innovation in radio: frequency modulation (FM). Most are familiar with it today; Armstrong created it as a means to eliminate static in radio transmissions. When he created it in 1933, his employer, RCA (the Radio Corporation of America) was not interested, since their radios gave them an empire using AM. Sure of his technology, Armstrong created his own FM radio station in New Jersey, and, with pressure to the FCC, got 42-50 MHz allocated for the purpose. Hundreds of high powered FM radio stations began to appear.

Just before television (RCA's real cash cow) exploded onto the scene, the FCC mandated that television signals use FM transmission. Armstrong believed that his position about FM's superiority had been vindicated. The problem was, RCA wasn't interested in paying royalties. They offered Armstrong cash for the rights to FM rather than pay royalties as many other companies were lining up to do, and then gave FM another blow: claiming 'sunspots' would cause a problem, they lobbied and won from the FCC a move of FM's band from 42-50 MHz to 88-108, rendering all FM radios of the time useless as of 1945.

Armstrong found himself in ANOTHER legal battle, particularly after RCA claimed a patent on FM technology themselves. This time, however, it was too much for him, and he committed suicide a few years into this second battle, in 1954. FM radio suffered a catastrophic setback of nearly 30 years because of the bandwidth move, and effort to keep FM technology bottled up.

URLs of Armstrong's life, achievements, and difficulties are provided at the bottom - definately recommended reading.

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Whatever we do, we should NEVER believe that simply because something is technologically superior (consider FM vs. AM), or even because we are right in fact, that courts will agree. Technology by itself cannot change written laws, or inform judges of facts. This is the job of lawyers, witnesses, lobbyists, and public opinion.

As Linux begins to 'make the big time', it will begin to affect companies which are powerful enough to lobby to change the laws and the fundamental rules of the game in order to maintain their primary goal - an increase in their stock price, value, and power. Consider what was done with FM radio, when RCA was faced with embracing it and paying royalties, or maintaining their own (one could argue, inferior) AM empire. Innovation was just fine in that case, so long as the goals of a rising stock price and company value continued to be met.

For example, Linux giving Windows a bad name is one thing. Taking away sales, and real money - or causing Microsoft's stock price to fall - will get their attention very quickly. Microsoft's market cap is half a trillion dollars. They mean...business.

-The GPL has so far held up because, in part, copyright law has not been changed at a congressional level to prevent it being used (as a for-instance).

-Microsoft has not yet embraced the GPL because it believes its route will still be more profitable. Should this change, expect Microsoft to claim that it invented the idea...and that it will put billions behind marketing to assure people that they did.

We must continue to follow the issues in these times. SCO's ranting may be a lot of sound and fury signifying nothing, but what is most important is that their claims do not hold in a court of public opinion or a court of law. Being 'right' does not assure a win. History tells us that we must be vigilant. I believe that is the point Forbes is making.

References:
http://users.erols.com/oldradio/ehabio.htm
http://world.std.com/~jlr/doom/armstrng.htm

Posted Jun 18, 2003 16:42 UTC (Wed) by iabervon (subscriber, #722) [Link]

Surely I misread something here. Or did Forbes just call IBM "Linux-loving crunchies"? IBM, with net income of $1.39B on revenues of $20.07B, 8th in the Fortune 500, 9th in the Forbes 500, which they've held or beat since (at least) '97? Versus SCO, with a revenues of $0.01B?

Sure, Caldera got a settlement out of MicroSoft, but that was an anti-trust case against a company that's been losing anti-trust cases left and right.

Forbes's Big Business slant seems to be hidden lately by an irrational opposition to Linux, despite the obvious opinion of their favorite computer company.

Posted Jun 18, 2003 17:55 UTC (Wed) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link]

scox will be bankrupt before this lawsuit is settled. Look at their finances. scox does not have a competitive product. and scox has alienated every potential customer with their 1500 letter campaign.

Posted Jun 18, 2003 17:57 UTC (Wed) by walterbyrd (guest, #11620) [Link]

I guess scox never wanted a profitable year, because scox never got that.

what scox really wanted was a quick settlement, because that is the *only* thing that could save scox from it's death spiral.

Posted Jun 18, 2003 19:27 UTC (Wed) by alkern23 (guest, #12164) [Link]

"The SCO Group, Inc. develops and markets software based onthe Linux operating system and provides related services that enable the development, deployment and management of Internet access devices and specialized servers."

(http://www.forbes.com/finance/mktguideapps/compinfo/CompanyTearsheet.jhtml?tkr=SCOX)

So they make software based on Linux? Um....

Posted Jun 18, 2003 21:42 UTC (Wed) by dkite (guest, #4577) [Link]

Posted Jun 19, 2003 8:31 UTC (Thu) by rabnud (guest, #2839) [Link]